ESSAYS and the INSIGHT RESUME (6)
Regarding Culminating Project:
Your admissions and scholarship applications may require a variety of items to be completed before submitting. One of those items will be an essay or personal statement. Essays for admissions and scholarships, bind your application together. Through your essay you have the opportunitiy to share your ability to write and share important information with the reader, about you--the subject. They will be looking at content and writing ability. Your essay will be read for conventions first, then content. Word choice and conveying a clear message through use of fluid sentences are a must. This is not the place for creative writing at length, but is the time inwhich to inform through concise, meaningful word choice, who you are.
Now, more than ever, your essay counts! Colleges depend on it to fill in the gaps between your scores, transcripts and recommendations. The personal statement, essay, is a means to tell the school, or scholarship committee, who you are, where you have gone and where you are going. During a Fall Councelors Workshop one of the college representatives put it this way--"If your grandmother read your essay she would react saying, with tears in her eyes, 'Oh, my, that's my Johnny!' The point is, it should be recognizable, even to grandma." Scholarship committees and admissions offices will see your transcript and know your classes and grades, but you are more than that! Tell them who you are, your goals and ambitions. Be memorable! Tell them how you plan to get from here to there!
Often times the essays written for scholarships/admissions can be adjusted slightly and resued for multiple scholarships. Create a basic essay which you can modify to answer the specific questions of that committee. You do not have to begin entirely over with each application. Simply save it on your computer so that it may be accessed, changed as needed, for each applications' specific questions. Make certain you are answering the specific questions asked. Always correct the date, the addressee and pertinent information within the body of the essay. Follow instructions. Print off originals to be sent. Copies generally never look quite as professional.
At the Career Center we offer informational packets for the purpose of getting you started on your essays. The information enclosed will include suggestions from essay readers, or admissions officers, from both private and public schools. We would like students to begin their essay process, in the summer of their junior-senior year. This will allow you time to think of who you are and where you are going. Take a close look at yourself and jot down your thoughts! Sometimes the scholarship committee requests that you write about a specific topic, sometimes it is more general. Pick up packets entitled Writing Scholarship Essays and Tips by Essay Edge. This will give you ideas and worksheets to begin your essays. Having an essay ready to be proofread when you get back in the fall of your senior year, will jump-start your scholarship search. We also have samples of essays in the Career Center for you.
New Concept: In 2007-08 some colleges began utilizing a specific system of finding out pertinent information from you. This is based on the Insight Resume. It is used for some college admissions and may serve as a basis for your scholarship essays as well. We have a new handout entitled the Expanded Insight Resume, in the Career Center. It will guide you in writing both an Insight Resume and an Expanded Insight Resume. This technique is based on the following specific areas--You may also print a copy of this procedure by downloading Personal Statement / Essay and Insight Resume Worksheet.
(you will need to download both sheets so that you have both the instructions and the worksheet)